Russian MoD names naval officers who perished in deep sea sub fire

The 14 officers who died fighting a disastrous fire on a Russian deep water research vessel have been named by the Russian Defense Ministry. The crew have sacrificed their lives to save fellow officers and save the submersible.

“Thanks to their timely, dedicated and competent actions, the submariners extinguished the fire, and saved their comrades and the deep-sea vessel while sacrificing their lives,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Three ‘captains 2nd class’– Alexander Avdonin, Dmitriy Solovyev and Sergey Danilchenko – as well as two ‘captains 3rd class’- Viktor Kuzmin and Vladimir Sukhinichev were named among the victims of the fire. Lieutenant Captain Mikhail Dubkov and a Lieutenant Colonel of medical service Alexandr Vasilyev were also killed in the blaze.

‘Captain 2nd class’ Dmitry Solovyev was the one who saved a “civilian specialist” from a compartment of the deep-water submersible that caught fire in the Barents Sea.

“Immediately after getting the civilian specialist out of the compartment, Dmitriy Soloviev sealed the hatch to prevent the fire from spreading through the whole deep-water vessel. The officer then continued to fight for the existence of the ship in the compartment, along with other crew members,” the ministry said. All the officers will receive state honors posthumously.

The tragic incident on the submersible occurred in the Russian territorial waters of the Barents Sea and was first acknowledged by the military on Tuesday.

The submersible safely returned to a port after the disaster. The exact vessel type, the total number of sailors aboard, the extent of damage to the vessel, as well as the cause of the incident remain classified.Earlier on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the information about the vessel and the whole incident is “absolutely classified data” that won’t be disclosed to the general public in full.

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